Q&A: How to Deal with Online Reviews

The biggest advice I have about online reviews is that businesses should acknowledge and respond to both negative and positive reviews. Obviously, you have to engage customers who leave negative reviews immediately, and find a way to resolve the problem, or make it up to a cus tomer wh o had a bad experience. And once you do resolve that issue, encourage the person who left the negative review to post a follow-up so that other customers know that you will go the extra mile to make things right. If you are unable to resolve the issue after you’ve done everything possible to satisfy a customer, post exactly what you tried to do, so that other people see that you didn’t just stand pat when you heard about a problem

And when a customer posts a glowing review, thank them immediately for their review and for their loyalty, and tell them you look forward to serving them again. This type of reinforcement will encourage customers to continue to feel good about your company, and makes it more likely that they will leave more reviews and encourage others to do so.